A Weebly Website

At first glance, I considered a website to be pretty much the same as a blog and wiki, although after exploration I found that a website is in actual fact different, with differing features and uses.
The difference between this website and the blogs and wikis you have explored is that YOU decide on the content and structure alone, and nobody else is able to edit, or add to it.

I used Weebly to create my website, and found the tutorial that went with it very helpful. Without it I would have struggled to get started.

To analyse the ICT tool of a website, I will use a PMI framework.

Plus:

• Website design has a lot of freedom, and encourages creativity and independence.
• Students are able to work on the website for a long period of time, and go back and edit it, thus making it a working document.
• A great sharing tool.
• Websites can be viewed by families, peers, and people from the wider community.
• Teachers can create websites containing the current unit, helping to engage learners.

Minus:

• Website design needs to be scaffolded to be used effectively, which takes much time.
• Requires much ICT skills - although creates a great opportunity for students to develop these skills.

Interesting:

• Copyright is a major issue with the use of internet, so students need to be explicitly taught how to legally use and reference material that is not their own.
• Netiquette also needs to explicitly taught to ensure students are design websites with appropriate material.
• Creating a website is time consuming.

In my current context of a Prep environment, I think a website would be a great tool to demonstrate the content and materials used in the current unit of work. As a whole class, a website could be created to demonstrate to families what has been happening at school, and also allow learners to access this work at home, thus creating a home-school link. This could be in the form of a online classroom, or blackboard.

My prac class is currently doing a unit on weather. A website could be created on this topic, and upload onto it could be videos of different types of weather, key vocabulary words, interactive learning objects and games, and photographs of the activities completed at school. This would be a fantastic tool to enhance the learning, and value what the students are doing. Parents would also enjoy viewing this.

In relation to learning theory, the creation of a website could be used in the 5th stage of Synthesis, where students need to organise from multiple sources, and present the information.

Overall, I would love to use the creation of websites in my future learning environments.

I have given examples of how I would use a website in my current prac class....How would you use it in yours? I would love to hear some more ideas.